My first Facebook birthday...

Pretty interesting...maybe my last FB birthday since i'm not a huge fan but my guess is that i will still be curious about the lives and loves of my 200 FB 'friends' after i leave Ghana ( in 247 days but really who's counting!) and so I will stay with it. Might change my birthday though, so it is always just past.

Note...i did NOT include the Year of birth in my Profile!

As we know, Richard, does not celebrate birthdays at all! and has not for many years. Indeed if it wasn't for the fact that Thomas Kelman-Brown shares the day then it would be a distinctly non-favourite day! He hasn't been high on B'days (wait, maybe i should reword that!) since Joe DiNunzio and Alan Rosenwald had him 'b'day greeted' at ADC by a young lady wearing apparently only a raincoat! Prior years in this his dotage were greeted with only surly 'thank you's' to the persistent few who seemed to delight in reminding him in the addition of one more year to his age.

Then along came FB!

FB gave me B'day greeting for 24 message-filled hours from all over..in many languages..English, Scottish, American, Brazilian, Romanian, Moldovan (separate language?), Italian, French, German, PC-speak, Persian(Farsi?), Ghanaian..with GOD also invoked from there and who knows what language she speaks!

The first in yesterday was Tricia Petersen Rasmussen..one of my my 72 new best friends from 01 June 2010..the new batch of PCV's headed for Ghana. I like Tricia..she's a committed, strong PCV here ..and that was nice but wow..thank you FB! but Tricia..will you still need me, will you still feed me when i'm 64?

And lots more from the ranks of the Ghanaian PCV's ...really, haven't they better things to do with their time!!! (well, yes..but FB says it's your Birthday!!!)

then they just kept pouring in..from a Royal High School friend who has a memory of a sometimes ill-behaved young lad (did he say 'tear-away?) in school..he must

have me mistaken for someone else!

..from Carola in Napoli who sent me a lovely picture of the Bay of Naples and then gently corrected my bad Italian and made me hungry for spaghetti con vongole verace and the best espresso machiato i ever had.

From Moldova..via Ellsworth and Shaw's...

And from two of the (very-well) Bred girls from Lugoj..cel mai frumos orasul in toate lumea- (please don't correct my Romaneste)

From Baharak who always finds me on my birthday...xxxxxxx..and she can be in some pretty hairy places.

From Billie..my favourite young lady, fortunately not old enough to get on FB..she'll set records for numbers of friends

Oh and from banks and credit cards companies and my contact-lens supplier, and a support forum for a piece of dongle-unlock software that i could never get to work...eh????

and on and on...

but the capper was my friend Noah, here in Whuti. Now believe me, i do NOT go around here advertising my coming birthday but when i went down to the JHS yesterday morning for Library time..the 'Library' comes to the classroom since we don't have our super stools and tables yet ( a bit like Macbeth and the Forest...) .

he had made up a huge Happy Birthday poster and got all the classes and all the teachers to sign it and THEN took me round each class and had them sing 'Happy Birthday' to me while i stood in front with a silly grin on my face..pretending to weep. while Noah almost split his sides laughing....and how did he know it was my B'day..FB of curse! (int. sp)

..altogether a very odd but funny (even memorable) birthday...wow, thank you FaceBook!

I've been here quite a long time...

..sometimes it feels as if i've been here forever. Having recently figured out that i have had a life-long ...we'll call it fascination with numbers and the measurement of them against various things..umm-statistics? ..i will admit to this being day number 524 of my current PC adventure.

I figured out the stuff about me and numbers/measurements because i recognised how readily i accepted the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Yup...my kind of challenge..like training for a marathon! Then i extended that a little...i have recorded every mile i've run since i (re-) started in Feb/Mar 1977...with time, place, and some 'performance' comment ..and thus the weekly, monthly, annual totals also. And despite the advance of years and the deterioration in performance, I have set mileage goals for each year. And ..sort of working back from the goal...i have figured out what a week should look like to meet that goal and thus i know exactly (to the 10th of a mile) how far i am going to run that day.

Somehow i don't think most runners are this way tho i might be surprised.

And chewing over this i then remember that some of early (good?) work with Univac was in performance analysis..and that was all numbers and statistics...and that a lot of my initial and still-consuming interest in Track & Field was in its statistics ..and i could still probably search through my memory, assuming most of it is still there, and spill out the performance statistics of every 'best time or mark' that i've ever personally witnessed.

And when i drive long distances, i'm constantly computing my average speed or distance covered as i go along..for example, i've driven from my house in Bar Harbor to Fi's place in Framingham (on the Boston marathon course..Framingham, not the house) many, many times but i still do my trip calculations and when i'm 2/3 through i call her and tell that i will be there by 5.22 or 6.16 or what ever i've calculated.

Interesting? Nah, not really, but maybe unusual? Certainly i don't think many of the people i've met in Ghana are labouring under this affliction!

Oh BTW..here in Ghana, at the Whuti Community Library, each user logs in and logs out and the time is recorded in each case. Thus I maintain..number of users per day and their total number of hours 'reading'..and thus can recite max number of users and hours per month, per week, per day.

Actually when i sat down to write this blog today, i was going to write something else but i've had the numbers thing percolating in my head for week or so and it is time to let it out!

I was going to write about how different life is for me here. I interact and communicate each and every day with lots of people in the community and neighboring ..from children to chiefs and obviously with lots of students.

It's both the way it is here and the role that i'm on (yevu living in smallish community). I would have to say that Ghanaians are much more friendly and friendly in more ways than any set of people that i've known..Make that MUCH MORE FRIENDLY!

This thought was prompted by something yesterday.

We are celebrating Hogbetsotso this week/weekend here. This celebrates the arrival of the Anlo tribe ...in the 17th century, it is believed...to this area, driven out from ??? by wars. They settled in and around what is now Anloga..so the principal place of the Anlo Ewe.

There are thousand and thousands of people in the area..including the Prez, John Atta Mills who visited yesterday. I saw him and waved as he sped by in his cavalcade of black SUV's ..tho his was 'GHANA 01'... a stretch SUV? with flags at the front and bizarrely, Ghanaian 'Secret Service'? guys running alongside the vehicle..pretty funny i thought....especially when they stopped so that the Prez could get out and take a pee at the side of the road (OK..i made that bit up ..but you never know). It was all such a huge scrum in Anloga that although i knew that the President was supposed to be there that day it seemed impossible to figure out where or when and there were, of course, many, many chiefs wandering around. If there was a programme or a schedule i wasn't aware of it.

Anyway, here we are, standing in the middle of the milling crowd, chiefs,etc wandering by. I was chatting to some of my JHS 'friends' when suddenly not more than 6-8 feet away, the crowd parts and sort of scatters and skittering across my vision is a woman in fine native costume but she's attempting to stab a similarly attired man with a long knife..not a cutlass but like a carving knife almost..long and straight-edged..she had the knife in one hand and was lunging at him while in her other hand she had the scabbard. Needless to say the crowd was quickly parting to allow them to roll on by..and then coming together again after they passed and so they were only in vision for few seconds really. i have a recollection of her throwing the scabbard at him, but not the knife and there was another guy or guys trying to grab her. But Here's the funny part..this happened very quickly..and they were gone very quickly, but no-one was screaming or yelling for the police and afterwards it was really as if it never happened - but this one i did not make up. It reminds me of how much closer i am to 'life' here ..and of how volatile the Ghanaians seem to be. I've seem more violent arguments and fights here than i've ever seen in all the rest of my life....many, many more. Some of that is due to the fact that i 'live' in the streets and markets much more than i have in any other place.

I still take a fair number of pictures ..and yes, i will add some Hogbetsotso pictures to this post when the weekend is over and i've sorted through them....but often when i look at the pictures i am dissatisfied ..and i've begun to understand why...when i look at the pictures, i don't 'see' the noise..the hubbub (sp?) of so much of life here...the cries of the traders, the enthusiasm of the greetings, the animated conversations over the heads of people.

There are many many things i will miss when i leave here..it will be as if the kaleidescope (sp?) has stopped..and in a way that is what one least expects when one signs up to be a PCV in Africa.

..and yes, i'll add pictures!

Practicing for NaWriNoMo...eh??? A Piece on Peace.

'I come in Peace', he said. 'Peace..' she nodded and smiled her crookedy, sad, hungry smile. But she didn't get the attempted humour. Not very surprising, no-one did here, difficult when it's delivered by a strangely-accented yevu in a language, English, that isn't what most people think in.

Ask a question..'Yes', they say which means ...ummm- i heard you speak. Ask it again..'Yes' which means ...i'm trying to understand what it is you said. Ask it again....'Yes' ...which means, i don't really understand what you're saying but is this the answer you're looking for?

He had gone out running as usual that Sunday morning on the scrub-land that bordered the beach. As it wound round, his path intersected with teams of fishermen hauling ropes attached somewhere out to sea to their nets.

They had their rituals...no fishing on Tuesdays and he had his...helping the fishermen at weekends after his run, showing 'solidarity' with an unspecified 'cause'. He did it because it felt good, looked good, gained him some unnamed respect though they'd never figure out why, at his age he would run every morning..even on Tuesdays!

There were fewer crews out today than yesterday..he could never figure out why it varied and so when he finished he had to walk down the beach before he ran into the crews.

It was always the same..he just went to the head of the line, wrapped his black running top round the rope and started digging in and hauling. They probably never knew or cared whether he actually pulled hard - they just appreciated the gesture - but he did and it felt good to haul and feel the different muscles pull. Not so old, not so past it all , he would say to himself.

He would generally share out his efforts amongst as many crews as were close together. Maybe they'd care if he didn't!

Over time he'd come to recognise a few of them. Weekends were different because kids and even out-of-towners would be on the ropes too but the regular guys were recognisably different. Older, generally..but certainly harder and,despite acknowledging him, they rarely smiled. Not hard to understand that really.

He worked that day with two crews.he did one shift on the net that was closest to him as he walked down the beach. A small crew, a lot of grunting, but not much talking. He joshed with the older women who were coiling the rope as they pulled it in. sometimes he would wonder what they thought of this strange person, this topless yevu hauling on the rope...surely he didn't need to do this..he's a yevu, he's rich. Likely no-one could imagine that he did it for fun and to show support.

The other crew were in the final stages of bringing up the fish and that was always the best time..the most fun. He'd taken off his shoes and parked them up on the beach near a buoy ...he'd find them again, he always did, tho rarely where he expected. Pulling in the nets always moved them much farther and faster down the beach than he thought.

He liked splashing into the surf, grabbing and wrapping the net, pushing the young boys out of the way..let a man do this!

Despite the number of men on the net, sometimes he'd get knocked down by the drag of the net when a big wave came in, and they'd all be yelling and pulling and laughing.

He supposed that after 3 or 4 hours of hauling on the net, there was a giddy anticipation when the sac that was where the fish had been trapped became visible. There was for him, though he had no stake in it.

The end always came quite quickly as everyone ran and grabbed and pulled and lifted.

He could never tell initially whether the catch was good or not. The men, especially those who'd been out on the boat and those who'd been swimming with the nets as they brought them in, stood around the end of the net where the catch was trapped.

He didn't push in. He had no right. But they'd let him in to look.

He looked at the catch..silver, flapping, twitching mass. Then he looked at the faces. He supposed that they'd been doing this for so long that they'd hardly be surprised.

This day, however, he could read the disappointment in their faces. They didn't say anything. They just looked. Each in his private thoughts.

There was almost a resigned expression as if to say, who could expect anything different. He knew catches had been bad for a long time now but still to see the disappointment etched on their faces was sad. He didn't know where to look so he looked at the fish like everyone else.

She tugged at his elbow. 'Fish', she said. Though it sounded more like 'Feesh'.

'Peace', she'd said the last time he'd seen her. 'My name is Peace.'

He'd run into her on the streets a few times in their community. He assumed that she lived there also but she was mostly on her own, wasn't carrying anything on her head to sell and no infant on her back.

She was a little different. it seemed as if she would make fun of or with him. She didn't speak much English so he didn't really understand but she would grab his arm and look fierce and then laugh at him.

She always looked hungry. To see her made him sad. For a Ghanaian she was probably skinny and he had wondered if indeed that was hunger.

She reminded him of a street woman that he'd tried to help when he lived in Manhattan.

She whispered in his ear and tugged at his elbow again. She had her tin basin with her to get fish but she would be at the generous mercy of a crew who had brought in a poor catch.

'Feesh, you give me!'

Once before he had seen her at a catch and that time a good one and the fishermen had offered him a couple of fat fish for his help. He'd turned the offer down..their need being much greater than his and she'd been stunned and argued and pulled at him.

This time she was making sure that he knew what was expected of him and he said 'OK, OK...fish' but he knew it wasn't going to happen. He hadn't helped that much this time and the catch was not going to make the fishermen feel at all generous.

He hoped for her and so he helped her find some scraps and her bowl had some fish - small fish, tiny really, and small shrimps but he knew that it wasn't going to happen.

He moved around to the other side of the net...he felt bad for her as if he'd let her down.

He slowly turned away and started to look for his shoes. He turned and looked back and she was watching him with her arms folded. He shrugged and waved and she turned away with her sad, hungry eyes.

Peace.

Library musings..

..one of the nice things for me (surprisingly..and surprising you!) is that one always chats with and is chatted to by fellow yevus that one comes across out in rural Ghana. And the conversations seem to happily cross nationalities and ages which too is unusual and ..ummm, nice!

But the same is true of meeting visiting Ghanaians ('visiting' as in visiting the community or just passing through ) and that is equally nice.

I am the person, the yevu, the volunteer who operates the nice new Whuti Community Library. Fair enough..that is who and what i am here. It is my credibility, my standing. I am the Library, the Library is me.

Of course, now i'm also the person that they see getting the JHS Library up and running ..and that's a little different. It puts me in a slightly different light.

People i meet or people i'm friendly with here ask me when they hear about the JHS Library efforts..getting a school library up and running in less than two months!...don't i feel very proud of my efforts? It 's a nice question, of course, but it surprised me the first couple of times..it wasn't what i felt.

It wasn't and isn't what i felt/feel because i've come to understand that opening the JHS Library and running the Whuti Community Library for 55 weeks now are not, in and of themselves, achievements.

In a sense i learned that the hard way..i had naively thought that simply opening the community library would immediately change things around here..and be of immediate direct benefit to all the children here. My guess is that lots of 'library-openers' think that too!

I now understand that opening the Library is only the first part of doing something meaningful.

And that there is much work to do in making the Library popular, useful, fun, important in children's lives...and actually beneficial in helping to raise children's literacy levels. In fact, maybe opening the Library is the easy part!

How, in the short-term of a PCV's time here, for example, do you 'sell' the Library, how do you get children to develop a Library Habit, how do you convince them that improving their command of English has to be their number one priority ..RIGHT NOW...and that developing the Library Habit is how they achieve that? Especially, if you're pretty much the voice in the wilderness?

Well, in the case of the Whuti Community Library, perhaps you achieve this indirectly by banging on those who seem to have influence in the community- the chiefs, the elders, the ministers/pastors, the head teachers, the teachers - really, anyone who will listen, and 'encourage' them to use their influence and positions to get children to come to the Library AND THEN,THERE ..make it a fun experience for them if you can so that they will want to come back again.

And maybe it is working..in this last week, we have had 476 ' Community Library visitors' and they have 'read' for 422 hours. These record numbers are big and the impression is that indeed the children are having fun. Now we have to make sure that this momentum continues. These numbers are twice what we had in May and June. So, highly encouraging!

Our Libraries are still works in progress but having almost 500 users in a week is HUGE!

And, i believe that as long as we make visiting the Library fun then we will be able to get many more Library visitors for whom learning is fun.

And the JHS Library, the 'son of the Whuti community Library' is progressing well also!

Now, exactly two months since we started working on the project..and started sorting through the book donation that we had received from the U.S. ..the JHS Library..VERY MUCH a Work in Progress and mostly lacking in tables and seating for the students ..is up and running and being used by the JHS students.

In the new curriculum, each class has two scheduled Library periods, and as of Thursday, 13th October, since the library isn't quite ready enough, and the students can't come to the Library, then the Library comes to them with a selection of the Library's books delivered to the classroom for their use!

AND...we've started training the Student Library Volunteers who will be responsible for and who will run the Library in its After-Hours mode (MON-FRI 2.20 - 4.00 p.m.) such that we can open it in this mode next Wednesday or Thursday!

Exciting.

The Student Volunteers, two per class, were elected by each class.

We haven't the faintest idea how the JHS students will actually respond to this 'opportunity' and i'm sure that the process and procedures will have to be modified and improved..but it's a real chance, a real opportunity.

Emmmm..occasionally, i realise that i seem to be doing most of the work here..both in the WCL and the JHS Library..and i wonder sometimes. And i say that i 'wonder' because that makes thing less sustainable, at least in theory..and i'm conscious now of the fact that i only have 9 months or so left in my scheduled Ghana effort. (And i worry about and would be truly heartbroken if what i did here collapsed after i left)

But..i recognise the difference between efforts that have real support and those wherein you feel that you are pushing against community habit (inertia) and i have very real support in the JHS Library and there is no way that we could have made this progress without that support!

And even the very best people here are unused to people working with them, stirring their community improvement spirits, setting the right examples, and making things happen and so it takes time to become a team and share responsibility and direction. I've been very lucky here in finding some people to work with ..and i must continue to take the long view. It has been an amazing learning experience.

How do i put all this learning to future good use? I don't know but i can and will learn over the next nine months and if the result is that we have three libraries up and running- the Whuti Community Library, the Eastridge JHS Library, and the Whuti primary School Library- and we have applied the lessons we learn to improve our process in each place, then i believe that we will see improved exam results in all the Whuti-Srogboe community students!

And i also believe that these results and the processes that we have developed will enable us to make the Libraries self-sustaining and -supporting.

And it's fun doing this shit..it really is!

Why do i get so bent out of shape..don't i know better by now?

I've been on a 'mission' for the last week and a half...button-holing whomever i meet..strangers or the 'weel-kent'..to get them to 'see' that part of the solution, if there is going to be one, to the crisis of the awful, disastrous exam results at the Primary and the JHS this summer, has to be improved English Literacy and that therefore ALL the children should be encouraged/pushed/driven to develop the Library Habit. And since we're still the only Library in town(s)- that means coming to the WCL (Whuti Community Library)...right?

(Maybe i have that crazed, driven 'Ancient Mariner' look about me now?)

I can see that the logic doesn't get through..they understand the 'bad' part-the exam results but not the potential improvements that imbuing the children with the Library Habit could achieve. It is as if, and it probably actually is, that they hear the bad news and they start looking around (..in their minds/in the discussion) for someone to blame or some political advantage or prestige to be gained.

So today, after another conversation with one of the chiefs, who shall remain nameless (..and it isn't as if they act differently..they tend to all play and know the rules of their 'game' much better than i do) it was in fact suggested that the failure to get more children to the Library on an everyday basis is in fact, partly my fault.

The Library is not 'officially open', i'm told..this despite the fact that it has been operating Mon-Fri 0915 t0 1730 for 54 weeks now! What does 'officially open' mean to the children..ABSOLUTELY FRIGGIN' NOTHING. Parents, etc don't encourage their children to develop the Library Habit because the Library hasn't been officially opened..they didn't notice it was there??? Or is it that the chiefs and elders-the (self-) important people haven't given their blessing for use of the Library because not having held the naming ceremony/the inauguration, they have not been sufficiently 'acknowledged' for all their work in making this happen and in operating the Library for the last 54 weeks? Wot a joke!

But nonetheless it is real..because it has come up before....so is it a reason (a cultural requirement, a historical/tribal relic)..or just an excuse for not really caring, a cop-out, for not getting off their (mostly ample) back-sides and actually doing something to help.

Well, yes, we know what i think but why couldn't it be that the 'cultural' bit is to not actually care about the community and the children (cos there's so many??) and to downplay and not endorse the benefits of education (because it is a threat??). And the 'cultural' bit is still just the same old male power struggle?

The other 'reason', quoted second-hand, was that that the Library is of doubtful benefit because we don't have copies of all the Ghana curriculum text-books available. I'm willing to bet that if there are 100 community libraries in Ghana..and there aren't..there is not a single one that has all the current curriculum textbooks..and in the WCL, wherein i have been diligently and aggressively trying my damnedest to work every person/every avenue to get these damned textbooks, we will have them some day.. if our new Accra friend, Fui Segbedzi, comes through!

But these excuses, for such they are, are so transparently false.

I don't honestly know why the people, who could and should, don't 'support' the Library and why they don't aggressively encourage the children to develop the Library Habit...and yes, my frustration is because I recognise that i never will know..and therefore can never change.

It seems so obvious..the children are always the losers..why don't you people see that and accept it and swallow whatever it is that sticks in your throats to prevent you from HELPING AND ENCOURAGING YOUR WON DAMN CHILDREN!!!!

I got angrier today, as a culmination of a number of things about/like this, than i've ever been here. Writing helps because i can better put things in perspective..Africa's tribal structure in place for so long; the impossibility of layering globalisation, etc on top of this centuries-old culture; the here today-gone tomorrow nature of most aid to Africa; and, by definition, how we must always see things differently. mine through a prism of Western 'process, society and civilisation' and theirs through??

Africa, perhaps, flatters to deceive..and (Arghhh...No! Can this be true??) i've always been a sucker for that kind of flattery and deception!

I'll add some pictures of progress to date on the JHS Library. We're getting close...next Monday perhaps. It doesn't have the same political football problem ...perhaps because of Noah..but also because it is just a school!

..so, as ever, thanks for listening. What would i do without you!

what does it say?

..when i confess that i don't really miss much between life in the U.S. and life in rural Ghana? Oh, i miss family big-time and to some extent, friends, but most of them are e-friends now so, apart from connection frustrations, that is no different.

My 'sporting' interests are running..and that's still get out of bed, go to the loo, put on shoes, go out the door.. and the rest are best followed on-line, i'm sad to say...tho i do get to follow Man U up in Anloga with my 50 new best 'Red' friends every weekend.

And the rest..food is food..books can always be found/or i find them.

I miss conversation..but i probably actually meet more new people here than anywhere/anytime in a comparable period..so maybe that's not so much to miss?

Comments?

I used to think...

..that this PCV stuff was something I was doing...now i begin to understand it is who i've become. Now it isn't important what that 'become' is..old guy working in far-off places trying to help?...but it is quite real and it (I?) can go on and continue to develop as opportunities arise. After all what i've become is slightly different/more advanced/helpful/useful/confident/ comfortable than the person that i was six months ago and there is no reason to think that this graph angle can not continue upwards for the next ten months...and then?

Well, part of it is understanding what it is i can actually do to help..that is really actually useful..and continuing to learn form all of that ..and part of it is continuing to accumulate good contacts for the present and my work here and now, and for the future also.

Just sayin', you know ( ..and that's the last time i use that phrase.)